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336 



NINETTE 



A REDWOODS IDYLL 



BY 

JOHN VANCE CHENEY 

Al'THOK OK "THISTLE-DRIFT." "WOOD BLOOMS." '"THE GOLDEN GUE.S8," ETC, 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

M. ISABP]LLE .AIORRISON 



SAN FRANCISCO 

WILLIAM DOXEY 
1894 









Copyright, 1893, by 
William Doxey, 



TO 
JANET AND EVELYN HOPE ("HENEY 



i 




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WAS in the days when throufjh the Gokleu Uate 
The good ships bore the buiklers of a State. 
Wliy was it royal Adolph coukl not be 
Hail-fellow in this lordly company. 
Lordly as ever from the ends of earth 
Was drawn and marshalled for a city's birth '. 
The palaces of chance with clinking stream 
<;)f silver, ringing showers of gold, — the dream 
Of Danae come true, they were for him, 
And yet the fine gold, how was it waxed dim! 
By day and night the gilded ways he strode, 
Stalwart as any; out the Mission Road 
Dashed side by side with maddest cavalier 
That jingled spur; but ever in his ear 
Sounded the counsel of the white-haired sire, 
Whom he had rescued from the hamlet fire. 





Glorious old roamer! many ye-ars before 
Famed Forty-Nine he knew the Golden Shore; 
And well a youth might heed the thing he said. 
Bending benignantly his iiol)le head 
As bend the oaks of Napa when they lean 
To meet the wild oat in its April green. 
'In olden woods the rarest mosses be. 
Old heads are white with treasure. C'ome to me." 
These were the words, too round to be denied ; 
And then was there not something said beside, 
About the " bird " Ninette, " her mother's child, 
Orphaned down in the burning southern wild"? 
These last were chance words, dropped in by the way, 
But to a young heart — let the young hearts say. 
In olden woods" — it echoed on and on; 
The boat slipped from her mooring, the boy was gone. 
Slow out of siglit Yerba Buena passed, 
Next rusty Alcatraz, and Angel last ; 
Behind, now, lay the windy town, the bay 
Rippling and glistening in the perfect day; 
Before, tlie vallev of the oat and oak. 






Kre long- lulled ort' to slumber, wlieu he woke 
'T was time to c^uit the boat, and with a will 
To thrid the oaks far as the western hill, 
Where the ji:uide. Cactus, waited in the shade. 
The wiud was stirrings, and the bur-oaks laid 
Great shadows, black alons: the blanchinf;^ grass, 
Matted so thick it would not let him pass 
Where it was rankest ; clear, between the swells 
Of wind, clear, merry, rang the blackbird bells. 
While ourgling- music, hurrving note to note, 
Spilled from the starliug-'s overflowing throat. 
And it was twilight ere he reached the guide 
Lounging upon the scenty mountain-side, 
Young, dusky Cactus, lithe and debonair 
A slave as ever fawned on lad^^ fair ; 
And deep the sun was sunk into the west 
The hour they reached the Redwoods and the '• Nest. 



p 



T WAS (lawn ; at the first calling' of the quail 
Adolph appeared. Below, the oaken vale 
And i)lung-ing spines of interjacent hills 
Were all in fog:, tlie dense white fog that fills 
The world up, there, till broad-backed ranges be 
Mere porpoises swimming a vapor sea. 
High over the white sea the sire had set 
His hearty morning meal. No others yet 
Were stirring, and the two, as hill-gods might. 
Sat there, and ate, then storied till the light 
Was in full glory ; when strode they forth, again 
And yet again to scan their great domain. 

"Helena's cap is off; now is the hour; 
Behold it, boy,— old Mother Nature's power ! " 
It was the sire, not half his welcome said. 
Hymning his Redwoods heaven as on he led. 

" Here has she set on high, and there laid low. 
As pleased her. Guttruff from you rock can throw 
The sight across seven ranges; turn that way. 
And he can count the white sails on the bay. 
How now ? And there be wonders in the West ? 
We hear the stars here, we in Eagle Nest." 



^ 



/ y 




The squirrels tiowiiig- 

round thoin, the pert jay 
Mocking tlie hawks, the highhoh's at their phiy. 
The golden-robin with his vigorous tune 
Singing liis heart into the heart of June : 
The lusty ({uail lifting: amid it all 
The happiest mountain sound, wild love's own call — 
Attended thus, moved slowly sire and guest 
Till come upon the " one bird '' of the Nest. 
'T was in one of those fringy, winding places 
Where close the clover-velvet interlaces, 
And the dwarf oak and little evergreen, 
Lovers, in one another's arras are seen. 
Under a numzanita, glossy, dark. 
Her yellow head, leaned on its winy bark. 
Made sunlight there. " Sire," Adolph sighed, *' all Greece 
Might well have sailed to fetch that golden fleece." 
Nor was the sighing fainter since the child 
Was woman rather, blossoming in the wild. 
With song and laughter. It was lesson-time, 
And, taught of l)rooks, she rippled rhyme to rhyme :— 



'* Catch-fly, clocks, and coluiiibiiu'. 
Whose am I if he is iniue ? 

" Blue-ciu'ls, Ijindweed, baV>y-eyes, 
Love is cruel when he tries. 

" Hoiind's-tongue, niglitshade, meadow-rue, 
I '11 have lover none but you. 

" Pin-bloom, pipe-vine, pimpernel. 
This, sweet naughty, you know well 

" Shepherd's-purse and shooting-star, 
Strangest folk all lovers are. 

" Silverweed and thimbleberry. 
Ho, my heart, but we are merry ! 

" Bleeding-heart and virgin'.s-bower, 
Now it is the lover's hour. 



" Stouecrop, stickseed, tiger-lily. 
He will love me — will he, will he? 

'' Knot-grass and forget-me-not, 
Let him swear it on the spot." 





m 







7 



•,'p.K 





THE larkspiu-, paiiited-bnisli and poppy flame. 
Ay, every peepiug sweet witliout a name. 
All, in those sunsets under foot ; the hues 
Of purple aud of searlet, j>Teens and blues, 
How have those beauties all their beauty blown 
Into one blossom, all tlie flow'ret's owu 
That woke, one moru, and was a human face!" 
Adolph leaned forward, poised as for the chase. 
Ami earolIin<r Niuette ? The list'ning wood 
Breathed out a shape to her. 80 bright lie stood 
She could not tell whether he was of earth 
Or owed the old divinities his birth, 
Sent down to be her father's friend, since he 
So honored them. Her blood ran riot, she 
Could feel the traitor shame-spots creep and grow 
The ruddy god — would he not see, not know 
,y Each silly tliought, and tell it, too, aud set 
All heaven a-langhing? Innocent Ninette, 
A silly child indeed to bleed with shame 
Before a god that could not speak her name. 
So dumb he was; one to be led away 
That he might arm to woo another day. 



/: 



/"* 



Age yet may serve young love. High on the rock 
Whence shines the bay, our lover could unlock 
His tongue; unsparing spent he on and on 
Until it seemed all love's best words were gone. 
The good sire heard, but as one hears in dream ; 
His mind was back there by the bay. The gleam, 
The growing wind, the smoke, the jam of drays, 
The furious hurry in the narrow ways ; 
At last the wall, the fragile, hanging wall, 
And then the cheering — and the blank. Life, all, 
Again 't was saved him by the peerless boy, 
And in a torrent broke his father's joy: — 
'^ Once more, once more, kind gods, I find a man 
To lift the heart up. Stand, Greek Puritan, 
That I may look, gaze till my sight, long dull. 
Whets it upon you, strong and beautiful. 
Methinks those were your fellows, brown-haired boy, 
Who brewed the stoim before the walls of Troy ; 
There had you buckled armor with the best, 
Shining to stir the hovering goddess' breast. 




/ 



^ 



1 said, to-morrow yon should yo to dig-, 
To gorge you in tlio tawny hills; but, big 
With fondness, I so tyrannous am grown 
I will to keep you. Leave me not alone 
Till th' autumn rains. The gold will 

wait. Boy, know 
Here in the wild I wandered years ago, 
And can, asleep, discourse of rock and sand 
To plague your wisest. Put in mine your hand : 
You shall have gold in heaps, then, surfeited, 
(If she will yield it) her own golden head. 
For two years, boy, she bides my one bird still, 
And then, why, then as she and Heaven will." 

THE summer went ; and overhead the gray 
Was growing on the blue. If graver lay 
Ninette sang now, the measure ran too free 
For true-love bonds, for captive minstrelsy : — 




f^" 




'Run away, love, and leave to me 
The way of the bird and the way of the bee : 

Flower to flower down to the mead. 
Mead to mead over the vale. 

Vale to vale as the sunbeams lead, 
On to the sea and tlie endless sail. 

" No, no, love, I will not stop, 
The butterfly swinjafs in the thistle-top ; 

Rock, rock, in the sunny weather. 
Song of the bird and sweet of tlie bee, 

Just the day and I together, — 
That 's the life and the love for me. 

" Fie, fie, love, bliss enough for me 
The song of the bii-d, the sweet of the bee : 

Flower to flower doAvn from the 
Flower to flower down to the dale. 

Field to field as the free winds 
Ho, for the sea and the endless sail ! 





• ' 



X 



:K 



"Nay, Nature; flowers will waken at 
her feet, 
Untimely, wrongly fionrisli in tlie sweet 
Of her false 8i)riug. Ay, quickened, they will blow ; 
Like her, will wake and waste, and never know.'' 
So gri(!ved the boy the while he secret heard 
The burden of the merry Redwoods bird. 
Lorn Adolph! Song that can deceive the year 
May be too subtle for a lover's ear ; 
Chance, other measures sang the merry bird 
Deep in her heart. 



And now the sky was blurrt'd, 
And over hill and valley woven and spread 
Dull, slumbrous color for the season dead. 
The sire could not sit calmly at his door 
And let the boy go, but, well on before. 
His voice startling the rabbit and the quail, 
Must see him to the forking of the trail: 
Straight as the pigeon points will run the way, 
With Cactus for your guide. He must not stay; 
It is no Sabbath journey, and we need 
The shoot of darkness here. The nightshade-seed 
Is brother's dog, his crutch; and past a doubt — 
The voice dropped now — the girl were lost without 
Her Shadow. Lad, the goddess — does she chide 
Or sway the battle to my hero's side ? 
How reads the omen ? " 



Good sire ; so, i)ray 



" I have kept my vow, 
,-ou, let me answer now." 





# 



A TWELVE-MONTH passed ere fortune brought 

the sire 
Fresh fuel for his pioneeric fire : — 
Right royal robbery, boy! but more, more yet. 
By Napa's oak aud by the bird Ninette, 
Play on, throw on ; it shall be kingdoms. More, 
More yet, more, more. Away ! But not Ijefore 
Some word be left may please a lass's ear. 
You scarce have seen Ninette ; too sharp, I fear. 
The thorns of honor." Slowly Adolph said, 
His brow bared, '' Not the lightest little thread 
That flies, far shining, from that golden head, 
Or wanders down that wondrous neck, love-led, 
Has felt a breath from me." 




-^ 



■i- 



Another June, 
And Adolph came to hear the fairy tune / 

Of air and hxughter, even the same he heard ^-n 

It seemed an age before. The wilding bird 
Sang on the same okl elfin-measured song. 
Trilling along the hills ; the warm day long 
The same far ditty, while with lighter feet 
The little breezes danced to it, and sweet 
The mating birds, 'mong the madrono boughs. 
Wove snatches of it in their lovei*'s vows. 
Two years had wrought a change. But few days 
Were left the uncle ; haggard, now, as hoar 
Was he that came to hide him from his kind. 
The scholar, hurt in body and in mind, 
Ninette's tutor, from whom no plant that grows 
Could keep the secret of its leaves and blows. 
Time had been busy: (xorgon, grim old dog. 
Followed her master's heel with feebler jog, 
While Hector, the pet elk, had sprouted horn 
Fit for the front of vanished Unicorn. 
And not the same was Cactus ; like his charge 
And playmate, Hector, he had sprung to large 
And dangerous size. To some old tameless race 
He pointed, with his native leopard's grace 
And withy sinew. 



And Ninette, the bird. 
The one bird of the Nest — love had uo word 
To name her change. '* Good sire," the lover said, 
' The child, as any eye may see, has fled, 
And I must woo a woman."' 

''Jacob, boy, 
Winced not at plnmp seven year. The gods help Troy, 
And great Achilles sulks." 

" Easy the gold 
Was rifled from the sands. There was I bold 
To lead ; could swing a thief up, hear his groan, 
Unmoved ; for play could break a bully's bone, 
And laugh, and bid him mend it. Now, I whine ; 
Human am I, the other is divine." 

' No maid unmans the man can so make stand 
'Gainst them that lord it in a new-born land " : 
So mused the tried old sire, and, musing so — 
As once his Jove — he let the battle go. 
The sire had notions. "Adolph and Ninette, 
They be a parlous pair," he said. " Abet, 
Oppose? Not I. No, not a single word 
To Alcibiades or to the bird.'' 




It was down by a spring- that bubbled up 

Among the hazels ; with a jjlossy cup 

Of leaves, Ninette was dipping:, sipping:, like 

The smooth noon-bird she was. " Strike, sunlight, strike 

Her head ; and in your pretty beating say. 

So does love punish, neither will it stay 

More cruel stroke if straight you do not own 

Your heart is Adolph's, his, and his alone." 

So spoke the youth in thought, then, prying through 

The maze of hazels, trolled he verses two 

Of an old ditty,— 




" On ti dtnj it fell 
He found (t naiad h}/ her native ivelL'' 
She turned on him swift as the darting light 
Sunned water glances, putting out his sight 
With the flash of beauty,— '^ Thus he did begin: 
' Prithee, siceef lore,' and straight she pushed him in. 



If, .sire, your happy Hellas had its art 
Supreme, what had this little darling heart 
Here in the wild? The while love's arrow si)ed 
Against her, up she tossed her glossy head 
In golden scorn : " Play nie a tune of war, 
The iron string, the stave num's hands are for ! 
But Venus' viol ! "' 



Stung by lesser thing , 
The lordly creature seeks the herb will bring 
Its life back : Adolph tasted, here and there. 
All substances on which large love may fare. 
Sore wounded. Now he nibbled at a book. 
A good old tome that from its rusty nook 
Looked out on him in pity ; now he tried 
The cures that grew the virgin brook beside. 
Where strayed the bright-eyed scholar, 

breathless, pale, 
His friend at last. All was of no avail ; 
Forthwith the maid, the lesser, frailer thing. 
Was sure to turn anew and softly sting. 
But. ah, the lonely upland roundelay 
She sang in the clear space where all the day 
The wild doves come ! There with the gray 

wild dove, 
It was another song, her song of love : — 



"Twixt the little oaks the sunbeams pry, 
And, wann and gold, in the open lie ; 

Yea, pretty doves, 

So many loves, 
And to spare not one I 
There be that have loves none. 

Around the doe plays the dappled fawn. 
The rabbits dance at dnsk and at dawn 

Yea, pretty doves, 

So many loves, 
And to spare not one ! 
There be that have loves none. 

The chattin.ir squiirel, silver-gray, 
T«'lls meny love-talcs all the day ; 

Yea, pretty doves, 

So many loves. 
Every heart with its own ; 
And vet you moan, von moan." 






THE little lonely uplaud song: of love, 
Crooned in the clear space with the 
mourning-dove, 
This nature heard, and, down below, the pain 
Of the strong man ; but came the two again 
Together, not a sound she heard of all. 
^' The man would stir ray love must fight, ay, fall, 
For me; and though an angel came to say 
' Sir Love does love thee,' I would turn away " : 
Thus mischievous Ninette. Her father gone. 
Her uncle, too, and Cactus with him, on 
A happy plan she hit, aided, may be. 
By certain nettling words dropped craftily 
By Hector's only master. 

" Shall a man 
Stand back for Hector ! What my Shadow can, 
It seems a man cannot. Set Hector food. 
Prove Love for once could make his great words good. 
" 'T is well," the other answei-ed ; " east or west, 
Who challenges the Knight of Eagle Nest? 
If Hector, joust with Hector let it be." 



"f^^ 




"p. HE knight passed in to face armed Hector. He 
Set food ; Hector, responding with a thrnst, 
Caught him, sent him down headking. 
V Mailed in dust, 

V Sir Love, no sooner down than up, would try 
/• It out, now, humbled in his lady's eye. 
^ 'Twixt sport and earnest, evenly he strove 
With rousing, pressing Hector till he drove 
Three short, blunt prongs into his naked side. 
Ninette, not seeing this, thinking he tried 
To frighten her with show of danger, l)ade 
Him yield the fight if, truly, use he had 
For butcher's l)lade. But when she saw the tide 
Slow reddening down the wliite of his bare side, 
She flew to fetch the silver-hilted knife 
Swung on the cabin wall. It was now life 
Or death. Both little liands on, all her weight 
To plunge the l)lade in. straight it went; so 

straight. 
Just back of Adolpli's body as he held 
Round Hector's neck, that prone the brut« was 

felled. 
The kniirht fell with him. 



Side by side they lay, 
One dead, the other — 't was too soon to say. 

The days were many ere she let him speak, 

The boy she held from death, but when, still weak, 

The words would come, then fell the voice of all 

Voices the sweetest : " ' He must fight, ay, fall, 

For me.' In sorry truth, it has been done.'' 

She smiling, weeping, answered, '' Too well won." 

Never before the wooing birds gave ear 

So close ; for never melody so dear 

Was heard from mountain stream or mountain bough. 

The naiad's heart was making music, now, 

And happy Adolph answering, — "Death is gone. 

Sweet ; I remain ; and here will I woo on 

Till hale again ; then hence, a knight well tried, 

For home, my lance and lady at my side." 





so spoke the kiiiobtly heart, the knightly word 
Oi cheer. But one there was that overheard, 
One all forgot in their full joy. his heart 
Rankling with hatred, he whose hellish art 
Had so niiseai-ried. On a fateful day 
The two had wandered to the ledges gray, 
Under the "flying bridge,'' — the hanging pine, 
With roots that push into midair, to twine 
There, gnarled and naked. Adolph thought to wind 
His way out. At the moment, close behind, 
A footfall ; and, as sprung up from the ground. 
The fiend was on him. Worn, weak with a wound- 
Nay, 't is too horrible. Let us hasten here, 
As is the vintage children's wont, for fear 
They in their dreams will see the cruel fight, 
See Adolph, all but lost, summon his might. 
And end it ; see the reptile Cactus, hurled, 
Writhing, into the hungry under-world. 

To the far-ofl:" home was borne the mountain bride. 



A WILD, rude tale ; and true? At the fireside 
Up in the hills, when summertime is gone, 
And heavily the autumn rains come on. 
The vintagers oft tell it, word for word, 
Drinking huge bumpers to the '' mountain- 
bird," 
Wishing her joy, she and her blue-eyed knight : 
And full as heartily they cheer the flight 
Of Cactus down the gulf, and curse his bones, 
Left to the vultures. But among the stones 
Under the pine, where all the summer day 
The vintage children sport the time away, 
Is oftener told the gentle afterpart 
Of this grim Redwoods story; and the heart 
Is in each little mouth as, one by one. 
They wonder how the miracle 
was done. 



1 



7 





J 



^1 ^ />- 



A minicle it was: when next tlu' ttcnvcrs 

Came out, upou a day of golden hours 

There sprung, among the rocks around the pine, 

The strangest, loveliest blossom that may shine 

At any time, in any place. The earth 

Has not another like it ; for its birth 

Was of the blood of her, the golden-haired, 

Slight wounded by the weapon Cactus bared, 

And she struck from him. Never tongue shall tell 

How fair the flower the children love so well, 

The rare rock-flower — one for each drop that fell- 

They pluck, and call the Golden Lily-Bell. 




C 32 89 <fl 













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HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 



HI 



DEC 88 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 



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